In this manner, Arthur’s journey is a lot like that of Forrest Gump. He stumbles through some of American history’s biggest and ugliest sins, oblivious to the scope of their evil, yet angelic in how he always finds himself on the inherent side of good.

Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto series has focused largely on men who adopt a life of crime in pursuit of the unattainable American dream, but the members of Dutch’s gang largely seem to have been wronged by the nation and want freedom from it. Every step of their journey is taken toward that one big job that can solve all their problems.

Like so many fanatical leaders, Dutch exploits the insecurities and desires of his followers, promising them exactly what they want. He uses a Machiavellian approach to justify increasingly horrific missions. And he never stops punting.

然而，除了 Dutch 本身極度缺乏戰略思考的缺陷之外，他們的鬥爭根本上是無謂的，時代的洪流已經無法阻擋。

…but a couple dozen folks eking out a life on the fringes of a small trading town can’t compete with hulking institutions powered by an unlimited supply of money and weapons, soldiers, police and mercenaries. In short order, their simplistic “Wild West philosophy” gets crushed beneath a time and a place that’s too complex for them to comprehend, let alone compete with.

But ultimately, the story is too sentimental, and the game too loyal to the video game story trajectory, in which missions become bigger and more explosive, rather than more critical and introspective.

很難衡量 Red Dead Redemption 2 是否完成了它想要的目標，因爲感覺起來這個遊戲是個大雜燴，不確定最重要的環節是什麼。

It’s hard to even gauge if Red Dead Redemption 2 achieves its own goals, because by the end, it appears to be a bit of everything: a violent shooter, a cracking heist flick, a meditation on mortality, a high school American history class.

At its best, the story breaks away from the Western genre and plays like a cross between a heist movie, a domestic drama and a political thriller. At its worst, it’s a buddy action comedy. Mercifully, it manages to be more of the former than the latter.